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Morris Birkbeck (January 23, 1764 – June 4,
1825) was an early 19th century Illinois pioneer and publicist. He
served briefly as the Secretary of State of Illinois.

Early
years

Birkbeck was born at Settle, England,
the son of an influential Quaker also named Morris Birkbeck and his
wife Hannah Bradford. By 1794, as leaseholder, Birkbeck was farming
an estate of 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) at Wanborough, Surrey, where he was the first
man to raise merino sheep in England. On April 24, 1794,
Birkbeck married Prudence Bush, daughter of Richard and Prudence
Bush of Wandsworth,
Surrey. After 20 (math error) years of marriage, Prudence died on
October 25, 1804, leaving her husband with seven children.

In 1814, accompanied by his friend George Flower, Birkbeck
traveled in recently defeated France. His Notes on a Journey
through France (1814) revealed a good-tempered, fair-minded
observer, well grounded in science and the humanities. A liberal in
both politics and religion, Birkbeck found it increasingly
irritating to be taxed by a government that denied him a vote
because of his religion and also required him to be tithed by a
church he did not belong to. In early 1817, with a party consisting
chiefly of his children, he emigrated to the United States, where
George Flower, who had gone before, now joined him.

Life in
Illinois

During 1817-18 Birkbeck purchased, both for himself and others,
26,400 acres (107 km2) of public land in Edwards County, Illinois.
Flower was busy raising more money and organizing colonists in
England.

Birkbeck's Notes on a Journey in America from the Coast of
Virginia to the Territory of Illinois (1817) was published in
Philadelphia, London, Dublin, and Cork. It ran through eleven
editions in English in two years, and was published in German at Jena (1818). His Letters from
Illinois (1818), published in Boston, Philadelphia, and
London, went through seven editions in English, besides being
translated in 1819 into French and German. By directing settlers to
the prairie lands of the then west these books had a wide
influence.

In 1818 Birkbeck laid out the town of Wanborough, which was
short lived. The same year he and Flower quarreled and never
reconciled. The cause of the split is unknown. Later Birkbeck
became president of the first agricultural society in Illinois. He
gave a great impetus to raising cattle and to the scientific
tilling of the soil.

In 1823 Birkbeck, through articles contributed to newspapers
under the pen name "Jonathan Freeman," helped to consolidate the
antislavery forces in Illinois and ensure that it became a free
state. In 1824 an old London acquaintance, Edward Coles, then governor of Illinois,
appointed him Secretary of State. Birkbeck served for three months,
but was turned out when the pro-slavery majority in the state
Senate refused to confirm his appointment.

Death

On June 4, 1825, while returning on horseback from a visit to Robert Owen at New
Harmony, Indiana, Birkbeck drowned trying to ford the Fox
River. He was 61 years old.